<html><body>Here's part one of the first draft!<div><br></div><div>Happy weekending with Jesus.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold">HOSEA 11:1-11 PROPER 13c<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold">COLOSSIANS 3:1-11 31<sup>st</sup> JULY, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold">LUKE 12:13-21 PSALM 107:1-9, 43<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> First, the bad news!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> “the division
between body and soul … was foreign to
the Hebrew mind where the ‘nepes’ – the self, whole person – was an
undissolvable composite of body and spirit.” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> Put it another way,
whatever one thinks, says or does reflects, to the minds of the contemporaries
of Jesus, as well as His ancestors, the condition of the soul. And this hasn’t
changed since Jesus’ time. We are – to the very core of our created being – we
are what we say. And if this doesn’t make us squirm just a little, then you’re
to be congratulated. You’ve reached perfection. You are exactly as God intends
you to be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> One thing I ask, though.
Please pray for me. I’m nowhere near there, and I squirm quite a bit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> We should be clear,
however, that this has nothing to do with our bank balances, or putting a
thousand square foot addition to our homes, or anything like that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> This story that Jesus
told is “about a man who failed to recognize that he was accountable to God for
all that he owned.” <sup>2</sup> He was accountable not just for his physical
and mental acts but for the fact that his soul was and would remain inextricably
linked with everything else that he thought defined him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> There’s an old Scottish rhyme
that talks of a teacher who sat in the church on Sunday, devoutly praying that
God would “gie him the strength to murder the bairns on Monday.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> It doesn’t work that
way. You and I can’t have a life like that – a well-dressed, quietly-spoken,
sweetly smiling and devoutly Sunday person and an avaricious, compassionless,
vindictive, dignity-stripping person for the rest of the week. We can’t talk of
keeping body and soul together. They <b><u>ARE</u></b> together. They always
will be together. So we have to pay attention. All the time!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> Notice, then, the problem.
“It’s all about me! ‘My barns … my grain … my goods’ make up (this) rich man’s
world His game plan is to expand his storage facilities in order to preserve
all his surpluses for himself.” <sup>3</sup> He’s flying solo. What he wants,
he gets. He can fix anything. He doesn’t need anybody.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> Facebook, you may have
discovered, has a way of reminding people where they’ve been. This past week, I
was told that a year ago I was talking about a poem written by Mary Oliver. It’s
called “Some questions you might ask” and it talks about the soul. She wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Is the soul solid, like iron?<br>
Or is it tender and breakable, like<br>
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?<br>
Who has it, and who doesn’t?<br>
I keep looking around me.<br>
The face of the moose is as sad<br>
as the face of Jesus.<br>
The swan opens her white wings slowly.<br>
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.<br>
One question leads to another.<br>
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?<br>
Like the eye of a hummingbird?<br>
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?<br>
Why should I have it, and not the anteater<br>
who loves her children?<br>
Why should I have it, and not the camel?<br>
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?<br>
What about the blue iris?<br>
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?<br>
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?<br>
What about the grass? <sup>4</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> The man who came to
Jesus asking for a summary judgement must have been the younger of at least two
brothers. He’s wanting Jesus to hit his brother up the side of the head, in a
legal way, of course. But “Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He
wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.”<sup>5</sup> Remember, Jesus recognises that now, as then, He
was dealing with the whole person. He wanted to help people beautify not only
their language and their relationships. He wanted – and continues to want – to beautify
peoples’ souls. As the hymn puts it, He wants to “fit us for heaven to live
with (him) there.” <sup>6</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold"> Just because He didn’t
want to take sides in this fraternal dispute, though,</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman";color:#202020"> didn’t mean that He didn’t care about cries
for justice. Wherever He turned, He was <b><u>SO</u></b>
absorbed about the lives and health of
the downtrodden, the oppressed, the outcasts, the fearful, the dispossessed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#202020"> This could have been written today
about everyone who struggles for a sense of purpose, some sort of recognition, for
something as simple as a meal, some way of keeping body and soul together.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>